


The Old Box

by ShadeReilly34



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drake speaking Spanish Headcanon!, DuckTales Reboot, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Implied Relationships, Lullabies, M/M, Other, Post-DT17 version of Darkly Dawns the Duck, Videotapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeReilly34/pseuds/ShadeReilly34
Summary: Drake receives a call from Mrs. Cavanaugh: A box with more than just memories of Grandpa Waddlemeyer, happy and nostalgic images... And a bitter and unhappy memory. Post-Darkly Dawns the Duck but set in the DT17 universe!
Relationships: Drake Mallard & Gosalyn Mallard, Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	The Old Box

The house in Avian Way was quieter than usual. And that was something that Drake was wishing more than anything; after a long and exhausting night chasing Megavolt and Bushroot that had ended in the bay port and with tons of fish heads up, all the darkness crusader wanted to do was close his eyes from 7 AM until 3 PM, time when Gosalyn was returning from the school. Launchpad wasn't there either; he had gone to Duckburg to accompany Scrooge on an errand because Della was in Funzo's with the triplets... Is not that he misses Launchpad at this moment (Really!) and his constant tendency to hugging him and being curled up on the couch... Well, maybe a little, so sue him.

So there he was, the terror that flaps in the night, trying to relax a bit in the living room. He hoped that no one, absolutely no one, (And woe to whoever _dared_ to!) _disturbed_ his sleep... Three rings sound from the phone later, Drake was _already_ planning a homicide when he took the phone and growled in a zombie tone: _"Hello?"_

A squeaky unidentified female voice spoke: "Mr. Mallard? Good morning! I hope I'm not interrupting."

 _"Yes, you did, and I swear you will regret it, whoever you are."_ He thought somberly": "Oh, not at all! What do you need?"

"I speak on behalf of the office of Mrs. Cavanaugh. She is asking you to come to the orphanage, because she wants to talk to you about something important there"

A chill ran down his spine in seconds and brutally. Mrs. Cavanaugh? What would the director of the orphanage want? It had been a year since the adoption of Gosalyn and everything had been (with its ups and downs) without drawbacks, of what would she wants to talk with him? About the reports from the random visits by the social worker mentioning something _odd_ about the mallard duck that had arrived one day at the orphanage with multiple wounds to adopt the _unadoptable_ Gosalyn Waddlemeyer? ...About her grandfather?

In his exhaustive investigation about Professor Waddlemeyer and the infernal Ramrod machine, just before concluding that the brilliant scientist's only (and confirmed) living relative, his little granddaughter, was in danger and he must rescue her before Taurus Bulba's minions reached her, Darkwing hadn't found more detailed information about the professor and his other projects, thus assuming (as the insightful detective that he was) that the government would have seized the rest of those projects and perhaps even personal belongings for national security issues, so he forgot about the matter and jumped to the rescue of Miss Waddlemeyer _("And even so, those clowns of the headlines qualified it as a kidnapping, it was a freaking miracle that they didn't call me a corrupter of an innocent girl or something like that."_ he thought pressing his jaws when remembering it...)

The rest, as we all know, is history: Drake now had a beloved daughter to think about and protect, so all these previous research about the past of the professor were stored in the huge (and infallible) archive of his mind.

...The feeling of panic increased. Had they found something he didn't find the first time? Impossible, Darkwing Duck is an infallible detective... Would some unknown family of Gos would have emerged from the shadows to claim the girl's custody? No, no... He must think with his head and not with the soap operas that once he watched during Fenton's birthday with M'ma Cabrera. He felt he had been silent for _more_ than ten seconds and cleared his throat. "Oh, sure, sure. Can I go there now?"

"If it's not too much trouble, Mr. Mallard: It's very important. We will wait for you there.” And he hung up.

Oh well, once again, his morning sleep was ruined. And the funny part is this time wasn't caused by Gosalyn... Or her caught for been playing hockey in the halls again.

* * *

"...I must say you came here pretty quickly, Mr. Mallard."

Drake smiled nervously: "Oh, a _friend of mine_ gave me a ride on his motorcycle."

Mrs. Cavanaugh smiled as she stacked folders and brochures on her already cluttered desk, brochures showing (according to Drake's sharp gaze) about adoption awareness. He smiled wistfully, remembering seeing them when he went to the county office to ask about that spirited little girl who had conquered his heart... A slight clearing throat brought him back to reality: The director hen was holding a large box in her hands half dented and sealed with adhesive tape.

"We received this from the government, inside are a few belongings of Gosalyn's grandfather (may he rest in peace), I don't know why they would have taken so long to send it..." _"It must be due for the delay of making sure that wasn't hazardous material"_ Drake thought looking apprehensively at the box: what could be inside? "...But there are also things about Gosalyn that you might like to have."

"...Oh," the mallard muttered, taking the box as if it was about to explode right there. There were Gosalyn things in there. What things? Maybe toys, photos (photos of her, of her grandfather... And her real parents ...) maybe old clothes ...What did they want him to do with the box? He had _no_ idea. _Would_ it be right to show it to Gos? Wouldn't it be too painful? He only managed to murmur: "Thank you. Thank you for this."

"It is the least I could do, Mr. Mallard. The reports of the social worker have been satisfactory until now. You don't know how happy we are to know that Gosalyn is happy and has a father who loves her very much." _"You can't imagine how much._ " Drake thought, puffing up his chest with pride and love: For her he would explode between pieces of concrete and burning metal even _more_ times if it was necessary. "And Oh! I hadn't noticed his ring: Congratulations!"

"My what?! Oh...!" He murmured, glancing briefly at the simple silver band on his left ring finger, and smiled warmly. "Oh, _that_. Thank you."

* * *

Darkwing left the Ratcatcher in the Tower before returning home with the box in his hands. It was kind of heavy, so he figured that inside were more than just toys or clothes. A stronger feeling of apprehension washed over him as he sat down on the sofa once more, though not to sleep... For an instant it crossed his mind to destroy the box, not let Gosalyn see it and thus _unearth_ some old pain in his girl... To avoid himself the uneasiness of contemplating the photos of her and her grandfather (And perhaps her biological parents reminding him with _painful_ emphasis that he was _just_ her guardian in _replacement_ for them and her grandfather) ...But he also knew that she should know, she had a right to know. In the end he couldn't take any more tension and with a cutter he broke the adhesive tape and opened it.

...As he _feared_ , there were a couple of photo albums. There was Professor Waddlemeyer as a young man, with his same good-natured and kind expression and despite the intense aged sepia tone of the photos, Drake could see the intense green of his eyes, so exact from his daughter's. He turned the pages in fear, waiting for repeated images of _certain_ _two_ ducks (and perhaps) next to a little ball of intense red hair... At the end he came to see them: A wedding photo, a photo of them in a field, posing in front of some ruins somewhere in Latin America, smiling, hugging or holding hands... The father was tall, red-haired and with a face identical to the scientist... The mother had the same brown feathers and a long dark hair full of curls. Drake closed his eyes tightly for a moment, squeezing the album between his fingers: This was _how_ he _imagined_ Gosalyn when she grows up: A triumphant mix of beauty and unwavering spirit. Feeling a lump in his throat, Drake opened his eyes and turned the page.

...A pair of tiny green eyes _bewitched_ him.

Gosalyn was standing on a chipped fence, behind an intensely blue sky. Her hair was tied in two pigtails and she wore a purple jersey with a white "1" in the center and pink sneakers. She was holding a frog in her hands, proudly showing it to the one who had taken the photo. He turned the page, seeing a somewhat smaller Gosalyn wearing a green dinosaur costume, making faces and rolling her eyes in a funny way. He turned the page again, Gosalyn was in an inflatable pool, looking so small inside a giant flamingo-shaped float... Drake kept turning the pages, watching Gosalyn blow out the candles on a chocolate cake with a "5" on it; Gosalyn in a huge lab coat showing a beaker filled with some strange substance (And dangerous in Drake's eyes); Gosalyn holding and laughing in a carousel... And as he turned the next page, Drake felt the lump in his throat intensify: Baby Gosalyn was sleeping in a crib, her short hair and a dark blue romper with stars, and just above her there was a rainbow-shaped musical ornament ( _"Inside of you lies a rainbow..."_ Drake whispered as if he was singing to that cute baby in that photograph...), he turned the page and...

Wait, that was _it_?! Weren't there _any_ more photos?! He wanted to see _more_ of Gosalyn...! Wait, what was that below?

He set aside an old abacus, a teddy bear (which smelled of old cheese and mold) and various clothes that were mainly very old pajamas. (Drake raised one of them to his face, imagining that there was a very small duckling in his arms and was giving her a good night kiss), several children's books, although one of them, a rather complicated treatise on the spectral color that was dedicated " _to my little rainbow Gosalyn"_ and some old toys... He saw something that made his eyes widen: A couple of VHS tapes! He rushed to get the VHS player out of the cabinet under the TV (How lucky he was to find this at a good price in a flea market just when all seasons of Darkwing Duck were released on VHS! He had to remember to convert them to DVD). He turned on the television and placed the tape.

…It _was_ the _recording_ of Gosalyn's hatching.

The duck knight stiffened, staring at the screen like a fan of his favorite team would in the heart-stopping final seconds of the match, watching as that egg jerked around inside the incubator, as the medics around were gossiping excitedly about the tremendous energy that the duckling was making to finally go out into the outside world… Drake gasped as he saw a webbed little foot emerge, then another and finally a head with dark plumage and an insignificant red forelock, eyes closed and crying loudly. _"It's a baby girl!"_ someone exclaimed and the video camera turned to show that it was Professor Waddlemeyer holding it, smiling radiantly and with tears in his eyes... Tears _also_ _present_ in Drake. He paused the tape and approached to the screen, laying his fingers on the screen where she was, now resting on a fluffy green blanket... She hadn't yet opened her eyes, but they would be green. This was Gosalyn… She had been their baby. And _now_ she was _his_ baby.

Even though he was watching it from a screen, even though it was a very old tape, full of people that was no longer here… Drake felt _part_ of _this_ , he (along with Launchpad) was _part_ of Gos's life now. And that would last until his last breath.

The other VHS tapes were some home recordings about Gosalyn, when she learned to walk and babble her first words, when she saw her grandpa do experiments in front of her to make her laugh, when he recited the lullaby in front of her: Things that kept a smile at the beak of the mallard and tears dancing in his eyes... And then **_HE_** appeared. Drake felt his blood begin to _boil_ when Taurus Bulba came out at one point, always with that disgusting smile, as the professor talked to him about something in a kind way… A thought brought chills on Darkwing: Did the old scientist _ever_ _even_ imagine that the man in front of him _would_ one day _order_ his murder in order to seize his last project?

It was a black stain on Gosalyn's existence. An ugly stain on the street that would never go away; Maybe it _didn't_ hurt as much anymore, more now when Taurus Bulba had died (And _burning_ in hell), but it _still_ hurts. All this were memories of the happy life that his girl once had and that had been taken from her in the cruelest way.

At the end of that last VHS he took it out and looked at it in his hands. He knew that Gosalyn deserved to know about this tape, as well about her parents and everything else... Even though for a moment it crossed his mind to go quickly to the Darkwing Tower and manipulate the VHS to eliminate that nefarious fragment of that tape, a sound from his Waddlewatch alerted him: It was already 3 PM! At what point had time passed _so_ _quickly_?! Panicking, Drake thought about hiding everything, pretending there was nothing there, and then getting rid of it at the first opportunity... Three seconds later he was disgusted with himself: No. He had to face it. And he wouldn't let her face it alone.

* * *

Gosalyn took the album in her small hands, staring at the photos with a growing mix of embarrassing, happiness and sadness, all exploding at the same time. From the moment she had arrived from school, Drake had led her into the couch, sat her beside him, and explained about the box, showing her the objects inside. Gosalyn had told him that she had lost her parents when she was very young, before she hatched, so she had seen photos of them. "Why would it take so long to receive this? This is all supposed to be mine!"

"They may have been classifying this as _'not potentially dangerous'_ but considering how long it takes for them to send you back the tax return, I _wouldn't_ be surprised for the delay." Drake replied, setting her down on the sofa to turn on the VHS player. "I have to show you this."

The red-haired girl was smiling when she saw the tapes of her and her grandfather... But the moment Taurus Bulba appeared, she froze almost catatonic, looking at the screen with an expression frozen in pure terror, and then began to tremble. Horrified at her reaction, Drake quickly turned off the television, blaming himself for showing her this: Even after a year, those wounds were still open. He hugged her tightly, cradling her in his chest. "Everything is okay, sweetie. He _won't_ come back. And if he even _does_ , I wouldn't _never_ let him get close to you again…” he whispered, pressing her against him, stroking her hair. Gosalyn trembled, her hands clinging to his flannel shirt, holding back a sob: It was true. He couldn't come back again, right? He couldn't... And still Taurus Bulba was _doing_ it through nightmares about those _two_ terrible nights: The night where she found that Grandpa died and the night where she believed Darkwing had died... It goes without saying that nightmares about her falling used to harass the masked vigilante often as well.

"I miss Grandpa so much," she murmured, her voice muffled as her face was pressed against her father's chest. Drake rested his beak on her head.

"I know you do, dear. You can cry if you want." He murmured.

"No, I just...! Just... Can you sing for me?" She murmured in turn. Drake smiled and nod, moving in such a way that he was holding his daughter in his lap, rocking her a little bit (And _miraculously_ this time Gosalyn _didn't_ start ranting about that she didn't want be treated like a baby), singing to her that lullaby that wasn't only a secret code or a way to make her sleep, but also a _mantra_ , a _balm_ to calm the terrors of both. The girl soon relaxed, concentrating on both the sound of his voice and the pounding of his heart, smiling sleepily, feeling safe in the arms of her hero: her father.

She didn't fall asleep, however. She still wanted to see the other things, toys and clothes. Some she wanted to throw away because they were too old or because they smelled bad (" _Dad, this stuffed bear smells like stale cheese,"_ she said grimacing) although deep down she knew that Drake wouldn't let her throw anything away, taking the baby pictures and hanging them all over the house... Ugh, she already imagined him showing them to the triplets, Webby, Violet and Lena, while she was dying of _cringe_. They ended up putting some of her toys on the shelf and others she would put in her room on her nightstand. Drake kept the albums next to the one they were already making, filled with photos of him, Gos, and Launchpad. Drake enthusiastically said he would frame the _cutest_ photo of her as a baby to place it in the living room, as well to post it in his InstaQuack, despite the girl's protests… Before they knew it, the clock struck six in the afternoon.

"Oh, it's almost time for my patrol, but Launchpad _isn't_ back yet," he pointed out.

The sound of the cuckoo clock could be heard in the quiet room, which was gradually darkening. Drake and Gosalyn looked at each other, the red-haired little duckling was still on her father's lap, holding precisely that stale-smelling stuffed toy (She was already thinking of making a good prank to the school's bully), they looked at each other without say nothing, his blue eyes met her green eyes... A smile was on Gosalyn's beak... A grimace was on Drake's beak.

"…Do you promise to stay out of it?"

"Humm, define _'stay out of it'_ …"

"Gosalyn..."

"I promise, I promise," the girl said vehemently, wrapping her arms around her father's neck, putting on her _best_ puppy face. "But can we stop at Hamburger Hippo first for dinner, _pleaaaase_?"

Drake rolled his eyes, looking fondly and resignedly at the spirited duckling, placing a long kiss on her forehead after removing her bangs. "For you, sweetie, anything." He sighed and rubbed his cheek with his girl's, closing the eyes, whispering in Spanish: _"Te amo,_ Gosalyn."

Gosalyn closed her eyes patiently, meekly allowing Drake to be as mushy as he wants with her if that means having his attention and the exciting possibility of going out and kick some evildoers' butts this night, so it was double prize!: "I love you too, Dad."

**Author's Note:**

> I certainly wrote this thinking of a fairly well-known headcanon in the fandom where says that the possible ending for Launchpad in the last season of DuckTales (which I hope isn't soon!) would be with him quitting his job with Scrooge as his pilot (since Della returned to Earth) and agree to be Drake's pilot/partner, moving in with him and Gosalyn in Saint Canard, thus continuing the Darkwing Duck's canon after the events of Darkly Dawns the Duck.


End file.
